


Bird Fly, Bell Sound

by afterandalasia



Category: The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Community: disney_kink, Dark, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Mental Breakdown, Sexual Content, Stockholm Syndrome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-05
Updated: 2011-08-05
Packaged: 2018-01-24 12:30:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1605251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a moment of fear, Esmeralda chooses not to burn. Instead, she feels herself slowly freeze.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bird Fly, Bell Sound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [little_elfie](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=little_elfie).



> From the great [prompt](http://disney-kink.livejournal.com/4400.html?thread=3510832#t3510832) at Disney Kink. In full:
> 
>  
> 
> _**"Gypsies don't do well inside stone walls..."** Esmeralda chooses a life with Frollo over being burned at the stake and is whisked away to the Palace of Justice, where the Minister has a devious plan to break her spirit. She is chained up in a secret chamber - Frollo has the only key to the room and visits twice a day to feed and clean the gypsy girl. After a few months of this treatment she begins to look forward to seeing Frollo as he is her only link to the outside world. He punishes her misbehaviour by neglecting her and 'forgetting' to visit, knowing that she hates to be left alone in the tiny room she has come to view as a prison-cell. Eventually Esmeralda is so desperate for human contact that she offers Frollo her body and bribes him with sexual favours in an attempt to make his daily visits last longer._

After a while, she begins to lose track of the days. The sun rises and sets, and occasionally she marks on the floor where the sunlight falls to try and have some sense of time. The first time that she hears the cheering of the Festival of Fools, tears fill her eyes against her will and she finds herself sobbing into her hands, the sound almost hidden beneath the cheers and foolery outside.  
  


 

  
  
She can hear the bells ringing. At their fullest peal, the stones of the chamber hum with them, and if she leans against the wall or lies on the floor she can feel them reverberate through her very bones, and for a moment it is like she is free once again.  
  
Perhaps it is Quasimodo who rings the bells still. Sometimes she imagines him, swinging from rope to rope, bringing out the beauty of the metal, copper and brass answering to him in song. Among the bells he is beautiful, released from the world. Her hands scrape on the stone floor, long after she has worn away her nails, until she leaves streaks of blood on the stone. A part of her, the mean part, wonders how it is that he can be so free within the confines of the Cathedral, but such thoughts fade after a while. Everything fades.  
  


 

  
  
Birds nest outside the window in the summer. If she presses her cheek against the bars, she can see the eggs in the nest. The birds grow used to her after a while, and do not mind that she watches when they sit on the eggs, ruffling their feathers, or later, when they bring insects for the chicks. Later in the summer they take flight, and soon the nest is left empty once again, a tangle of twigs and dried grass.  
  


 

  
  
His touch is the only one that she has felt for months, she realises. At one point, very early on, she screams in anger at him and fights, and in return he does not come to her. Soon she is so hungry that the world swims and wavers, so thirsty that her throat aches and cracks, and she licks the sweat from the palm of her hands to try and soften her tongue.  
  
When he finally comes back, she tries to hold on to her anger, to remind herself how it is that she hates him and that he placed her here, but her eyes latch on to the tray in his hands. Wine, bread, cheese; such simple fair, but it would fill her mouth with saliva were there any moisture left in there. She turns her head away, towards the window where the sunrise forms thin blue strands of light.  
  
He places the tray upon the floor. Still, she does not look round.  
  
"I will remain here until you drink and eat," he says, his voice cool and silky. It sends a little thrill down her spine, and makes her throat feel thick and clogged. Such would be the voices of demons; she wonders whether he understands his own faith.  
  
He stands, and waits, and the world is soft and faint around her as she looks out onto the sky. But her heart is pounding painfully in her chest, and her hands are shaking with fatigue and hunger. Time filigrees around her.  
  
She does not look to see his smirk when she finally falls upon the wine, snatching it up to her mouth and gasping when it hits her parched tongue and makes her stomach feel like she has swallowed the sea. She does not look as she snatches the food to her mouth, like a child grubbing in the dirt again, something she has fled for so much of her life. The grapes are sweet on her lips, the juices dribbling down over her chin, and she prays not to see the hungry way that he watches her as well.  
  


 

  
  
At first, she sings to herself from time to time, but the words sound hollow. It is not long before she cannot bear to raise her voice when she is alone.  
  


 

  
  
The stone walls are so cold, the sheets clammy, the heavy wood of the door so old that it seems to suck heat from the air. The window is too small to let in warmth along with its small offering of light, and she is always cold. Perhaps it is to blame as well for how thin she is becoming, how she can touch thumb to finger around her wrist, and if she uses both hands clasp around her thigh.

His body is warm, though. Warm when he touches her arms, her face, her breasts, and she clings to the warmth and closes her eyes until he feels like warm water running over her body. When he enters her he grunts, but she does not hear it, feeling instead the forced waves of heat that rush over her, and her tears hot on her cheeks as well. He emits warmth; she takes it from him, in her body or hands or mouth, and when he whispers in her ear she breathes in his breath and feels like it is the only air she has to draw on.  
  


 

  
  
She can hear the spectacles that are hangings, burnings, executions. She can remember the fire, so close to her face that she could smell the smouldering of her hair, so that everything went white and his face shimmered like a mirage in her eyes.  
  
She wonders whether she told the truth when she claimed to repent.  
  


 

  
  
When he has to leave for a week to visit some of the outlying villages, she begs him not to. He assures her that there will be food and water enough, but she knows that there will not be. She will starve, or die of thirst, or he will leave forever and forget, or he will be killed and then none at all will ever know that she was here. In years they will find her bones and no-one will remember how she came to be here, she knows it. And even her spirit will be confined to this chamber.  
  
She knows it, she knows it all, and how can he not see that? She tells him over and over again, but he looks at her as if she speaks in tongues, and eventually her words become as incoherent as he seems to believe that they are. Instead in desperation she catches hold of him and presses her lips to his, trying to let her tongue and lips speak without words, and pulls him over to her cot to plead with her body for him to stay.  
  


 

 

  
He does not stay. None respond when she screams until she tastes blood in her mouth. She wonders whether anyone on the streets below can hear her above the sound of the bells of Nôtre Dame.


End file.
